His Holiness the Dalai Lama speaking to students ‘Our Dreams of Freedom’ at the Depot History Center in Wroclaw, Poland on September 20, 2016. (Photo courtesy/Maciej Kulczynsk)

(TibetanReview.net, Oct02, 2016) – China has made it clear that it continues to remain highly anti-Dalai Lama in its Tibet policy, rendering any prospect for the resolution of the Sino-Tibetan issue under the Xi Jinping leadership decade a distant dream. Countering the Dalai Lama’s influence is the “highest priority” in China’s work on ethnic affairs in Tibet, Reuters Sep 30 cited the recently installed Communist Party boss of the so-called autonomous region as saying. The ethnically Chinese leader has vowed to uproot what he considers to be the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet’s “separatist and subversive” activities.

“First, we must deepen the struggle against the Dalai Lama clique, make it the highest priority in carrying out our ethnic affairs, and the long-term mission of strengthening ethnic unity,” the report quoted the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) party secretary Mr Wu Yingjie as saying in a speech published Sep 30 in the region’s official party mouthpiece Tibet Daily.

Wu was further quoted as saying, “(We must) thoroughly expose the reactionary nature of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, crack down on separatist and subversive activities, and strive to eliminate at their roots harmful elements that damage ethnic unity.”

Wu, who has spent his entire political career in TAR, was appointed the region’s top official in late August, and has vowed stronger criticism of the Dalai Lama.

Tibetans, one of the PRC’s 55 officially recognized minority groups, are supposedly guaranteed constitutional autonomy and protection for their languages and cultures. However, in reality, they are directly ruled from Beijing which marginalizes and treats them with suspicion, viewing them as being bent on separatism. Although the Dalai Lama has for decades been seeking to resolve the Tibet issue on the basis of his middle way proposal — which seeks real autonomy, not independence, for Tibet – China has kept dismissing it as a separatist move.

China invaded Tibet immediately after the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct 1, 1949, forced the reclusive Himalayan country in 1951 to sign a 17-point Agreement which promised a sort of one-country, two systems policy for the territory, and fully annexed it after the failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising.